


Of All the Nights

by doctorsorders_deathboy



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, more middle of the night baking lmao is this my brand now, solangelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 21:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15421545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorsorders_deathboy/pseuds/doctorsorders_deathboy
Summary: Based on the prompt: it's 3am, in the dead of winter, some motherfucker set off the fire alarm and i am being very vocal about how i'm gonna make that fucker pay (you're the fucker who set off the alarm with your awful cooking)





	Of All the Nights

**Author's Note:**

> lmfao i guess i’m back from the dead bitches. (this wip has existed for so long. i could not tell you why i decided to finally finish it tonight but AAA im so excited to be posting a fic again omg) amusingly, my last fic also involved late night baking. i hope you enjoy!!

It was 3:07am on the third of January and Nico di Angelo was dressed in nothing but a too-small fuchsia bathrobe, soaking wet, and about ready to commit bloody murder.

It was very possible, he thought, that the bathrobe contributed to his fury.

This was the kind of disaster that he’d recount to Jason later, with countless creative swears thrown in, though as he stood shivering and fuming outside a stranger’s apartment, it occurred to him that this might be one of those stories that would get more laughs from Jason than shared anger. Asshole.

Speaking of assholes, the door  _ finally  _ opened, revealing a very flustered looking blond man around Nico’s age. For a moment, Nico almost backed off on his prepared rant upon seeing how miserable the blond looked, but when another draft of winter air hit Nico’s still dripping legs, his scowl only deepened.

“What the  _ hell _ were you doing baking at fucking three in the morning?”

The blond blinked once, twice, three times. He opened his mouth, closed it, and Nico was about ready to break his damn nose when he finally said, “Sorry… Do I know you?”

Nico had never had height to his advantage but hell if he didn’t know how to make himself intimidating. The blond shrunk back as Nico reared himself up to hiss, “Luckily, I was able to make it through 21 years of my life without meeting you before you had to go and nearly set the damn building on fire because of your insomniac cooking. Do you have any idea what kind of night you’ve caused for me? Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should save your incompetence for the waking hours when most people will be out at work anyways? Honestly, what kind of bullshit did you pull to make the fucking fire alarms go off? Did you pull this shit on purpose? Is this some kind of a joke to you?”

The man took much too long to answer again and Nico was collecting every bit of self control he had to keep himself from wringing this jackass’s neck when the response finally came. “Why are you wet?”

Nico must have reared up spectacularly that time because the man quickly amended, “I mean―! I’m sorry, that’s not the point here, um…” He peeked out of his apartment and looked around the deserted hallway. “If you want to yell at me, can you do it in here? I don’t want to wake anyone else up.”

“Like hell, you care,” Nico grumbled but willingly stepped into the man’s apartment. In hindsight, this really wasn’t Nico’s wisest move considering this guy was a stranger and Nico was nearly naked, but the blond seemed about as threatening as a frightened mouse. A tall, blue-eyed, frightened mouse who somehow had a tan in the dead of winter.

“Sorry, who are you again?” the blond asked, closing the door behind a fuming Nico.

“Your pissed off neighbor from two floors up,” Nico snapped. Unfortunately, the blond visibly cringed, looking like a kicked puppy, so Nico muttered, “Nico. Di Angelo,” as a reconcilement.

“Will Solace,” the blond introduced himself in return. He held his hand out to shake but quickly drew it back when it was clear that Nico’s arms were not moving from where they were crossed against his chest.

They stood in uncomfortable silence until Nico repeated, “How the hell did you set off the fucking alarm?” in as dangerous a voice as he could manage.

“I, well…”

Nico shot another fierce glare and Will didn’t waste anymore time in getting to the point.

“I was making pizzelles for my sister’s birthday and the iron must’ve broken because it was making a  _ lot  _ of smoke. It set off the fire alarm which went off throughout the whole building and… yeah. It was a mess. I’m really sorry. I feel awful.”

Nico didn’t doubt Will’s sincerity. The poor man was hunched in on himself with bags under his hands and his hands firmly stuck in his pockets. That didn’t make his story any less ridiculous, though.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said without a hint of remorse, “I think I missed something. Why the hell were you baking at  _ three in the fucking morning? _ ”

Will frowned at him. “You curse a lot,” he muttered.

“ _ Why the fuck were you― _ ”

“I was working until 1am!” Will exclaimed, which was the first indignant comment he’d made. “And I have classes at ten in the morning, but I promised to meet my friend for coffee at eight so I figured I’d just power through and bake when I got home but―” His voice broke off.

Nico’s cheeks tinted with embarrassment upon seeing Will’s face crumple a bit.  _ God, please don’t cry. _ Nico hadn’t ever been very good at comforting crying people.

“Sorry,” Will said, his voice hoarse. “I should probably… I’m just going to clean up and go to bed. No more smoke. I promise.” He attempted a laugh to lighten the mood but it came out strangled and pitiful.

Nico was about ready to leave Will to mope when he spotted a picture hanging on the wall across the room. Will stood in the center, looking much happier than he did standing in front of Nico. The Will in the picture had a smile that made you want to smile back and had each arm thrown around a friend, pulling them close. He looked jubilant; the kind of person who you felt certain you could approach without fear. It was a painful contrast to the melancholy man Nico had met.

It felt very wrong to Nico that someone so happy could look so broken.

“What about your sister’s pizzelles?” Nico asked quietly.

Will shrugged. “I’ll have to buy her something on my way over tomorrow. Hopefully she won’t mind. I just feel bad, I promised I’d bake for her. Those pizzelles are her favorite.”

Nico considered this for a moment before internally rolling his eyes at himself. “Then we’d better make some pizzelles, shouldn’t we?”

~*~

“You still never explained to me why you showed up at my apartment soaked and nearly naked,” Will said conversationally, as he stood washing the dishes while Nico carefully arranged pizzelles in a tin.

Nico cleared his throat. “That’s a conversation starter I haven’t heard before.”

“Seriously,” Will said, grinning. “Were you swimming?”

“Why would I be swimming in the dead of night?”

Will shrugged. “I dunno, that’s why I was asking.”

“I wasn’t swimming.” Nico put the lid on the tin and turned around, pulling his fuchsia bathrobe tighter around himself.

Will turned towards him, too, eyebrows still raised.

Nico exhaled very slowly before admitting, “I was taking a shower.”

Will blinked. “At… three in the morning?” When Nico’s expression darkened, he added quickly, “Not that I’m judging! Obviously. I’ve taken many middle-of-the-night showers. I just… So, are you a med student, too, or what?”

Nico scuffed his shoe across the floor and grumbled, “No.”

“Okay.”

Silence.

“So…”

“I had a dream,” Nico blurted, probably due to a combination of his lack of sleep and the way Will’s eyes had this kind, dreamy quality to them that made you feel like you could tell him anything.

Will’s eyebrows furrowed. “You showered because you had a dream?” His eyebrows shot upward. “ _ Oh. _ ”

“Not like that!” Nico said quickly, heat rushing to his face. “ _ No _ , oh my god,  _ no _ , that’s not…” And then he was laughing harder than he had in a long time and Will was laughing with him and he hardly felt embarrassed anymore. “No, it was a nightmare, not…” Nico tried to catch his breath. “Not  _ that _ .”

Will tsked. “That’s a shame.”

“Yes, very disappointing.”

“So the shower was, what, to calm you down?”

Nico shifted, his mind flashing back to the dark, blurred images of a few hours ago. Bianca’s smile melting off her face, his mother screaming for him, a packed, dark room where people were crying and disappearing one by one, and he was next, he was next― 

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Basically.”

When he’d woken up, he’d had to spend what felt like eternity reminding himself how to breathe again. He’d been having more nightmares recently, ones so bad that he almost considered Jason’s advice to start seeing a therapist. I mean, shit, he knew college wasn’t doing much for him in the mental health department but things hadn’t been this bad since he was thirteen.

He tried different things each night to get himself back to sleep―whatever it took. One night he didn’t manage to properly get back to sleep afterwards; he just lay in his bed with the lights on and music playing, counting the beats of his heart as he dozed on and off. That night, after waking up, he couldn’t stand his own skin, couldn’t stand being trapped in his body any longer, couldn’t stand the way he could still feel cold, dead hands from the dream clutching him―

So he’d gotten in the fucking shower and made the water as hot as he could stand and then the goddamn fire alarm went off. Jesus Christ, of  _ all the fucking nights. _

“Must have been a pretty bad dream,” Will murmured.

Nico shrugged. “Yeah, I mean… Yeah. I was… Sorry for being so harsh on you earlier. I was still kind of shaken up, I guess. I probably wouldn’t have marched to your apartment for a stupid mistake on a normal night.”

Will grinned. “Probably?”

“Maybe.”

Will laughed. “Oh, here!” He handed a small tin to Nico. “You helped make em, you should get some for yourself.”

Nico opened it to see that it was crammed full of pizzelles. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course. I love the bathrobe, by the way―I never said.”

“Oh god.” Nico groaned. “It’s not mine.”

“Your girlfriend’s?”

And then Nico was laughing again. Christ, that was twice in one night. Something must be wrong with him. “Yeah, no. It’s my sister’s.”

“Ah. Well, for the record, my next guess was that it was your boyfriend’s. I don’t mean to assume anything.”

Nico sucked his teeth. “I don’t have one of those, I’m afraid.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes, very disappointing.”

Will smiled softly to himself and Nico noticed that he had a dimple on one side of his face. God. Nico really wished he smiled more.

“Well, thanks so much for the baking help. You really didn’t have to,” Will said as they walked towards the door.

Nico waved him off. “I’m the one who came to your apartment in an angry rage. I needed to make it up to you somehow.”

“Do you frequently get in angry rages?”

“Yes, but mostly just for the aesthetic. Usually I’m too tired to be properly angry.”

Will laughed.

“I’ll return the tin to you, by the way,” Nico added.

“Will you be showing up at my apartment nearly naked again?”

Nico flushed and laughed nervously. “No, I promise I will be fully clothed.”

Will hummed disappointedly. “Well, I suppose I can’t have everything,” he murmured. He smiled then, full and warm, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and yes, Nico definitely wanted to see that smile more. “Goodnight, Nico,” he said cheerfully.

The door shut before Nico could figure out a way to respond. He stood there staring at it for a solid thirty seconds before turning and heading back to his apartment. When he got back, he decided, he’d put the pizzelles in a different container. He wanted to return the tin to Will Solace as soon as he could get away with.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Comments and Kudos mean the world to me! I hope you're all having a lovely day <3
> 
> -Aspen


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